The planet Saturn is often associated with the archetypes of the Teacher, Taskmaster, and Disciplinarian. Once believed to be the last planet in our solar system, it is the planet that governs our relationship with time and authority.
For about half of each year, from our perspective on Earth, the planet Saturn appears to move backward through the zodiac — a motion known as being retrograde.
Saturn’s impact on our lives is not always obvious in the moment; it does most of its work in the background of our lives. It’s work is slow, but its effect is long lasting.
Saturn transits through each sign of the zodiac for 2.5 to 3 years, taking about 28–30 years to make its way fully around the sky. It’s transit through each sign often brings us lessons in “adulting” related to the area of our lives connected to that part of our charts.
Since March 2023, Saturn has been transiting through Pisces, bringing its structure to the sign of oneness. Pisces represents the ocean; its signature is a lack of boundaries.
As Saturn stations retrograde on June 28 (3:06 pm, 19º26’ Pisces), it offers us an opportunity to pause and notice how we are working with the Saturn energy in the part of our lives connected to Pisces. Like an artist stepping back from the canvas, we can step back from the daily doing of our lives to evaluate our relationship with authority, structure, and discipline.
Our Complicated Relationship With Saturn
Like the relationship we have with time itself, our relationship with Saturn can be complicated.
In the language of astrology, Saturn represents the weight of responsibility that can fuel our work or weigh us down. It is the structures that we often crave and also push back against, the rules that create order in society but that we want to break, the discipline that can help us get things done but that can also feel to constricting.
Like a lead weight, Saturn brings a sense of duty and responsibility to the part of our chart where it is transiting.
The Discipline of Daily Action Without Rewards
This is the planet that governs the things that take discipline to do daily, often without immediate reward, and show their effects in time.
For example, showing up to the gym every day is a discipline that doesn’t always give you immediate gratification or reward, but the daily practice will help you live longer and get more out of life in the long term.
Publishing a daily blog has little reward in the moment, but over time, you can build a substantial volume of work that draws attention and grow an audience.
Case in point: when I started publishing to my blog every day, my blog received approximately 3,000 visitors a year. Now it attracts over 10,000 visitors a month — despite the fact that I don’t pay for ads or even promote it on my social media accounts.
Saturn asks us to consider what we want to build over the long arc of time, and then have the discipline to show up to implement daily, even if we’re not seeing rewards.
When we feel the inertia of not wanting to do anything, Saturn implores us to have the discipline to get up and get started: workout, write, do your chores.
We often think of discipline in this way: the discipline to start, to show up, to continue.
The Other Side of Discipline: The Discipline to Step Away
But there’s another side of Saturn — and to discipline itself.
Objects in motion are also in inertia.
As the last planet visible with the naked eye, Saturn also represents limitations, boundaries, rules, and restrictions.
Saturday — the day of the week when we stop working to rest, is Saturn’s Day.
In the Jewish tradition and other religions that observe Sabbath on Saturday, Saturn’s day is a day of a myriad of rules and restrictions that limit our ability to work.
This is the other side of Saturn’s discipline: the discipline to stop working; the discipline to walk away — even (or perhaps especially) if the work feels incomplete or unfinished.
In our culture of doing, where we are encouraged to constantly do more and always be taking action, this side of Saturn is often more challenging.
It takes a lot of discipline to walk away when we feel something isn’t finished.
Two Sides to the Same Whole
These two sides of Saturn — and of discipline itself — may appear at first to be in conflict. In fact, however, they are two parts of the same whole.
Saturn’s rules and structures are like the banks of a river: without the banks, the water doesn’t flow. Even the vast ocean has the structure of the land surrounding it to contain it.
Without traffic lights, we’d have chaos on the roads.
It is the structures and containers of life that give us freedom to move in a way that feels safe.
Saturn’s Strategy: Play the Long Game
In the same way, the discipline to stop working allows us to avoid the type of overworking that can lead to burn out.
This discipline to step away even when something feels unfinished gives us the space to rest, which fuels the discipline to show up the next day.
And the commitment to show up tomorrow can make it easier to stop today.
Ultimately, Saturn’s strategy is to play the long game. Setting boundaries around our time in any task can give us more energy and time over the long arc of time.
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